18chat room - Manifest and latent functions of dating

It has been suggested that "the state of limerence is the conscious experience of sexual incentive motivation" during attachment formation, "a kind of subjective experience of sexual incentive motivation" and represents an attempt at a scientific study of the nature of love.

Limerence is considered as a cognitive and emotional state of being emotionally attached to or even obsessed with another person, and is typically experienced involuntarily and characterized by a strong desire for reciprocation of one's feelings—a near-obsessive form of romantic love.

While limerence does not require it, those concerns may certainly be incorporated.

Affection and fondness exist only as a disposition towards another person, irrespective of whether those feelings are reciprocated, whereas limerence deeply desires reciprocation, but it remains unaltered whether or not it is returned.

Limerence, which is not exclusively sexual, has been defined in terms of its potentially inspirational effects and in relation to attachment theory.

It has been described as being "an involuntary potentially inspiring state of adoration and attachment to a limerent object (LO) involving intrusive and obsessive thoughts, feelings and behaviors from euphoria to despair, contingent on perceived emotional reciprocation".

If a certain thought has no previous connection with the limerent object, immediately one is made.

Limerent fantasy is unsatisfactory unless rooted in reality, because the fantasizer may want the fantasy to seem realistic and somewhat possible.Tennov notes how limerence "may dissolve soon after its initiation, as in an early teenage buzz-centered crush", but she is more concerned with the point when "limerent bonds are characterized by 'entropy' crystallization as described by Stendhal in his 1821 treatise On Love, where a new love infatuation perceptually begins to transform ...[and] attractive characteristics are exaggerated and unattractive characteristics are given little or no attention ... According to Tennov, there are at least two types of love: limerence, which she describes as, among other things, "loving attachment", and "loving affection", the bond that exists between an individual and his or her parents and children.She notes that one form may evolve into the other: "Those whose limerence was replaced by affectional bonding with the same partner might say ...'We were very much in love when we married; today we love each other very much'".Physical contact with the object is neither essential nor sufficient to an individual experiencing limerence, unlike with one experiencing sexual attraction.